CELL PHONES
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
LAPTOPS
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
CAMERAS
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
» infoSync TV » Review Center
» Tech Gifts » Expert guides
» RSS & Alerts » Ask The Editors
Home / Review Center / /
Review: Motorola C350By Jørgen Sundgot, Friday 4 July 2003
GALLERY
Enlarge
 
 
Jørgen Sundgot gets down and jiggy with Motorola's latest, music-tuned colour handset, the C350. The verdict? You'll have to read on to find out.

Review summary of the :
Gallery »
Pros:
Cons:
%
POOR
Mediocre
Good
Very good
Excellent
Full review of the :
As the second ever colour handset from the manufacturer (excluding the A830 3G phone, which is a rare find), Motorola's most recent low-end offering has a lot to prove. The dual-band GSM 900/1800 MHz C350 sports a good range of features and delivers an impression of overall quality, yet offers uneven performance and is in need of a few improvements - specifically in areas tending to core functionality.

Motorola's C350 has one of the smallest colour displays in the world
The handset itself comes off as feeling somewhat plasticky, much due to the exchangeable covers and its leight weight of 85 g. Further contributing to this is its display, which is extremely small - yet, pleasantly bright and offering 4,096 colours. This can display 4 lines of text and 1 line of icons, which is just barely adequate nowadays.

Ergonomically speaking, the C350's keypad is quite pleasant to use with well spaced and distinct key shapes, which are graced with a comfortable white backlight. Unfortunately, key presses do not always register which is one of two factors contributing to inputting more than small amounts of text quickly becoming an infuriating experience. The other is general OS latency, which by itself is a minor annoyance but adds to the overall frustration when combined with faltering key presses.

Navigating the C350 has both its positive and negative sides: while main menu navigation is slow and jerky (caused by graphic overload), the menus are well thought out and intuitive. A big plus, both soft keys of the handset and the main menu can be customized and reordered to provide quick access to the areas of the phone most used. A big emphasis is placed on personalizing the C350 with embedded themes and ring tones - some of which are quite nice, others of which are apalling - and also download new ones.

Other features of the C350 include pleasantly receptive voice dialing, as well as a calculator, a currency converter and a handy datebook with reminder alerts. A MotoMixer application which lets users design mix their own ring tones in MIDI formats is perhaps one of the most innovative traits of the phone, but patience is required to create something of sufficient quality to pass on to friends and family. Also, a WAP 1.2.1 browser is included - but given the resolution of the C350's screen, browsing is far from a pleasant experience.

From a purely phone perspective, the C350 delivers good audio quality and also offers adequate signal reception. Its GPRS 4+1 data features could perhaps have benefited from the inclusion of an infrared port to allow use of the C350 with laptops, handhelds and the likes, but at least it ensures WAP surfing at a good pace.

Powered by a 600 mAh Lithium Ion battery, the battery life of the C350 is also best described as adequate. Motorola's own numbers claim a standby time of up to 215 hours and a talk time of up to 290 minutes: our tests showed approximately 190 hours and 250 minutes, respectively.

Availability

The Motorola C350 is available throughout most of Europe, and sells in the 175 EUR range.


Price and availability

The will start selling for TBA () in December 1969.

Best Phones
Name Score Price Carrier
C
Nokia N95 8GB NAM 85% $650Unlocked
Apple iPhone 3G 82% $200AT&T
Nokia N95 80% $530Unlocked
AT&T Tilt 77% $400AT&T
Nokia N78 76% $500Unlocked
RIM BlackBerry Curve 8330 (Sprint) 74% $280Sprint
HTC Mogul 73% $400Sprint
RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8130 (Verizon Wireless) 73% $170Verizon Wireless
Nokia E71 73% $500Unlocked
Helio Ocean 72% $200Helio
Click here to see full and advanced chart »
 
 
 
RECOMMENDED
Bold vs. E71 vs. Epix vs. Treo 800w
 
Storm vs. iPhone 3G vs. Omnia vs. Touch Diamond
 
T-Mobile G1 vs. Xperia X1 vs. Touch Pro vs. AT&T Fuze
 
TOP STORIES
Top 15 smartphones
 
New smartphones and cell phones this week
 
Top 15 cell phones
BlackBerry Storm review (Verizon Wireless)
 
Best Windows Mobile smartphones
 
Best slider QWERTY smartphones
CELL PHONE RESOURCE CENTER
Best phones
 
Expert guides
 
Ask the Editors
» Top 15
QWERTY phones
 
All-touch phones
 
Touchscreen phones
Business phones
 
Multimedia phones
 
Concept phones
3+ inch screen phones
 
Wi-Fi phones
 
More...
» Search (New!)
Search by cell phone features
» Manual comparison (New!)
Select up to 4 cell phones side-by-side
» By release
October 2008, November 2008, December 2008
» Top 15 by carrier
Unlocked, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Helio, Alltel
» Top 15 by user type
Average Joe, Business users, Calling addicts, Fashion conscious users, Globetrotters, High-res addicts, Internet addicts, Multimedia enthusiasts, Music aficionados, Outdoor enthusiasts, TV addicts, Video lovers, More...
» Top 15 by brand
Apple, HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, BlackBerry, Samsung, Sony Ericsson Other
» Top 15 by platform
Palm OS, Symbian S60, Symbian UIQ, Windows Mobile
» Top 15 by cell phone type
Business smartphones, Multimedia smartphones
Consumer QWERTY phones, Multimedia phones
Concept phones
NOW IN PHONES
Top 15 smartphones
 
New smartphones and cell phones this week
 
iPhone AppStore encourages independent developers to improve
 
LG Incite review (AT&T)
 
Samsung Saga review (Verizon Wireless)
BlackBerry Storm gets serious bashing
Microsoft Zune / Danger smartphone or platform could be on its way
Why do Windows Mobile overlays fail to impress?
Next 25 stories
MUST READ
CELL PHONES
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
LAPTOPS
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
CAMERAS
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
MP3 players
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
INTERNET TABLETS
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
GPS NAVIGATORS
HDTVs
CAMCORDERS
About us | Site map | How to advertise | Feedback | RSS Feeds | | Archive
Copyright 1999-2008 © infoSync World